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November 18, 2009

'2012' disappoints after initial action

By STEVE OUELLETTE, Movie Review

There was a time when a disaster movie involved merely a doomed plane, boat or building. Occasionally, a whole city.

Now, however, it's not really a disaster movie if the whole world isn't being destroyed.

In "2012," disaster master Roland Emmerich outdoes himself with a spectacular fusillade of Mayan-inspired global destruction heretofore unseen on the big screen.

The film's computer-generated images of the apocalypse are vivid, while the action scenes are adrenaline-filled and occasionally outstanding. That's the good stuff.

The bad stuff is "¦ well, most everything aside from the Oscar-worthy special effects. They couldn't have spared a few bucks for a half-decent script?

The premise of the story is that solar flares are somehow overheating the Earth's core, and sooner or later the entire surface of the planet is going to become unstable. An idealistic young scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers the impending doom a few years before the fact, leaving the government time to prepare an emergency plan without the public's knowledge. Fast forward to 2012, and havoc breaks loose.

I'm sure that the science is ludicrous, but that's fine; it sets the movie in motion and doesn't have to make sense. Far too much of what happens after that, however, is ridiculous and predictable. Combine that with cringe-worthy dialogue and characters we don't care a lick about and you've got a movie that's at least 45 minutes too long. Probably more.

John Cusack tries gamely as the everyman hero, Jackson Curtis, a failed science-fiction novelist and part-time chauffeur. Tipped off by Woody Harrelson's crackpot doomsayer, Jackson tries to save his two kids and ex-wife from extermination when the West Coast is hit by massive earthquakes.

The first big action scene, with Jackson hurtling through a collapsing Los Angeles in a limo, is amazing and the best scene in the movie. After that, though, Emmerich tries to repeat the magic over and over again — the family is always escaping with the ground collapsing around them.

Numerous world landmarks and cities bite the dust in what becomes a grim exercise of destruction, but the viewer won't care the tiniest bit about any one of the billions killed — unfortunately, not even when it's a main character.

A good cast is completely wasted by the script. Amanda Peet has nothing to do as the plucky ex-wife. Danny Glover is an ineffective president, and Oliver Platt is mostly annoying as some kind of scientific politician. Poor Ejiofor has to deliver some dreadful lines, including a schlocky speech at the end — part of a silly climactic race to stave off certain annihilation that made me laugh unintentionally at least three times.

I wanted to love "2012" when I sat down in the theater — Cusack is a personal favorite, and I enjoyed Emmerich's smaller scale world destruction in "The Day After Tomorrow" — but by the end I didn't even like it.

Total destruction is fun for a while, but after awhile it becomes dull, and "2012" doesn't have anything else to offer.

Rental Recommendation: Roland Emmerich was at his schlocky best in "Independence Day." Grade: B+

E-mail Steve Ouellette at: ouellette1918@gmail.com

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